When Gotcha Racing arrived on the 3DS back in 2015 it received particular praise for its simple pick-and-play setup, the unexpected depth dictated by luck of the virtual Gashapon car parts and that moreish Micro Machines-esque gameplay. Three years later and on new hardware, will lighting strike twice as Gotcha Racing 2nd floors it for the gold?

Controlling your car could not be simpler: ‘A’ accelerates, ‘B’ brakes and ‘Y’ will annoy your fellow driver with the horn. Knowing how to properly brake and accelerate in order to make your car drift is the single most important skill you will need to ensure some proper racing times among the more curvy circuits from the 16 on offer. The action button is a new addition to the series. Hitting ‘X’ will execute your current chassis special action (assuming you have one at all). These charging abilities usually give you some sort of momentary advantage over your opponents, but come with a special penalty to balance things out. For example, your car might come with a speed boost that will greatly increase your top speed for a moment, but then penalise you during the recharge period with a 40% top speed penalty.

Now consider there are no less than 700 different cars parts that you can get from dropping your earnings in the game’s virtual gacha machines. These are divided into body, engine and tires (all of them in common and rare variants). This offers an incredible amount of combinations and variations on top speed, acceleration, cornering, drift and brake values, along with the new action command. You will constantly be taking on ‘just one more race’ so you can try your luck at getting a new part or a new chassis. You probably already figured this out already, but we'll go on record as saying Gotcha Racing 2nd is insanely addictive.

A very welcome addition to this sequel is the brand new local multiplayer. Just like overhead racing games of old, adding other human players to the racing procedure will never fail to live things up and that much is certainly true here. You can split the screen with up to three other players and race any of the 16 circuits available in the single-player championship, play single-screen mini-courses that will bring further nostalgic memories of classics such as Super Sprint of Super Off-Road or even play a sort of battle royal mode where you get to spin-attack opponents out of bounds. Nintendo Switch is a perfect fit for this sort of local multiplayer mayhem and this game certainly nails the party aspect of play right from the pole position.

The tracks are cars are nicely rendered in 3D polygons, allowing for not only for some impressively smooth scrolling, but also some very nice details and perspective camera angles of all the action. Of course, Switch doesn't have the same amount of vertical space as it was offered by the previous game’s double-screen 3DS setup, and this is mitigated not only with three camera distances (which you can switch on the fly with the ‘RZ’ button), but the ability to switch the racing screen to TATE. Music is adequate and the sound effects do a lovely job of making those engines roar properly.

Despite all of these positive aspects, the core gameplay remains locked to the genre’s tropes; if you're not a fan of overhead racing games, it is doubtful this package will change your mind about it. Online multiplayer is sadly locked to leader boards where you can compete for the best times on all 16 circuits against the whole world (or at least the rest of Switch owners all over the globe). Having online racing lobbies such as the ones present in Mantis Burn Racing would have been a welcome addition, but this is perhaps something to be revisited in a possible future entry in the series.

Conclusion

Gotcha Racing 2nd is an incredible slice of generous retro racing content with hidden depths; one you can play for two minutes or two hours and always have incredible fun while at it. There is no single winning car combination so you will constantly keep coming back to get new parts and customise your four different designs in order to shave off seconds in the Grand Prix tracks and the game might even turn out to become a party favourite with your friends. Additive, fun and bursting with content for a sensible price we can’t but unquestionably recommend this second outing of overhead racing extravaganza even if you missed out on the first game. As for us, off we go to the gacha machine... again...

Regular person by day, super video game player by night, Gonçalo lives in eager anticipation that the prophecy of a new F-Zero will soon be fulfilled. When not messing about making weird music he can be found with a Super Nintendo pad in hand, replaying a Japanese wrestling game no one has ever heard of.

How jump-in friendly is the multiplayer are are there options to tweak the rule-sets? I've got this on the wishlist b/c I'm looking for a Super Off-Road-style game eventually but on the fence atm as to if this is it.

This game is amazing. I usually hate top-down racers but I got this one because it's only $10 and I love racing games so I thought I would give it a chance.

Couldn't be happier that I did. This game feels perfectly accessible, it is a lot of fun, and surprisingly addictive. That said this is also the kind of game that feels perfect for just playing in short bursts if I need to, making it a great portable game.

It controls very well, I think the graphics look great for what it is, and the "gotcha" vehicle upgrade system works great and is a part of what makes the game so addictive.

I honestly couldn't recommend this game enough. IMO this is one of the Switch's eshop killer apps right up there with Golf Story.

@JayJ Yep it's a great little game. Have you tried playing it in vertical mode yet? Opens the track in front of you right up, looks really good. Frustratingly the menus remain in wide-screen mode, hopefully they patch it. I've been tilting my head between races rather than keep taking it out the stand, not ideal haha

@Shiryu Oh wow funny of you to mention Mantis Burn Racing because I absolutely hated that game! No joke, only reason I got it was because of praise like yours around here and I considered it to not only be one of the most overrated games I ever played, but one of the only games I truly regretted buying on the Switch. I hated it so much that it was the primary reason why I hated top-down racers until I got this game.

Gotcha Racing plays MUCH better than Mantis Burn ever did, and it is far more balanced and enjoyable experience. Mantis Burn just had zero polish, the music and menus were awful and the career mode was just a total grind that I had absolutely no fun with at all. Worst of all was the actual racing, I can imagine it being somewhat fun with friends but playing against the computer was a total drag, and the AI was simply awful, no joke the harder difficulties felt easier because the AI still behaved the same but the cars were more forgiving if you made a mistake. Mantis Burn is just an Awful game IMO and I would never recommend it to anyone, in fact my recommendation would be to avoid it.

Gotcha is just a lot more fun, and a lot more enjoyable. Easily the best top-down racer for the Switch, and probably the best top-down racer I have played in generations.

@JayJ Good to hear - If you read the comments for Mantis Burn Racing review you might have noticed me stating a few times that I was unimpressed with it as well - contrary to the NL review and other people.. so for me it seems great that you think in comparison this is much better.

@RetroGamerAndrew Again and as I mentioned, graphics are not really important in this particular genre, smooth scrolling is. the bright primary colours are an actual throwback to many other Japanese games of the genre. I say you give it a go.

Had absolutely NO intention of picking this up, had funds loaded for something else in fact lol. Decided to give it a whirl and ended up staying up WAY too late last night playing! This one is addictive, like REALLY addictive. Fun as hell too, glad I decided to check it out!